January 29, 2014 by The Diamondback

THE DIAMONDBACK | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014

OPINION

EDITORIAL BOARD

Mike King

Editor in Chief

DAN APPENFELLER Managing Editor

SOTU: Tackling inequality

Deputy Managing Editor

maria romas Opinion Editor

ADAM OFFITZER Opinion Editor

STAFF EDITORIAL

ast month, President Obama gave a sweeping, powerful speech on income inequality, calling it the “defining issue of our time.” But the speech, given at the Center for American Progress late on a Wednesday morning, received little media attention. As usual, the complexities of structural inequality prevented the issue from gaining relevance in the national conversation. Last night, however, the president used his biggest annual stage to address income inequality and economic opportunity. Finally, the growing gap between America’s rich and poor is picking up steam as a national issue. Hopefully this growing interest in arguably our nation’s biggest failure will lead to congressional action and executive orders. It’s an atrocity that in the world’s wealthiest country, 23 percent of American children are living in poverty. According to a 2013 UNICEF study of 35 developed countries, this rate was the second highest. American inequality is not an unfortunate coincidence. It’s the direct result of government policies favoring the wealthy with minimal support to the poor. It’s the result of years of poorly funded schools, an inefficient health care system, unfair higher education costs and a whirlwind of complicating factors. Last night, Obama explained that while the overall health of the economy is improving, little has changed for the nation’s poor. “Corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better,” he said. “But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The

MATT SCHNABEL

cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by — let alone get ahead. And too many still aren’t working at all.” OUR VIEW

This year, Congress must follow through on President Obama’s call for increased economic opportunity. Throughout his presidency, Obama has pushed for policies that combat income inequality. According to a report released Friday by the Brookings Institution, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “may do more to change the income distribution than any other recently enacted law” through tax credits and Medicaid expansion. Race to the Top invested more than $4 billion in education reform, spurring reform efforts in schools across the country. And while it’s not a popular political talking point for the president, last year’s tax increases on the most affluent Americans will help redistribute our national wealth. All of these incremental changes will help reduce national income inequality in the long term. But the president has yet to place a specific focus on the issue, instead approaching it from different angles without a cohesive message or plan. Hopefully now, in the final three years of his second term, Obama will shift toward a complete focus on income inequality and employment, helping to fulfill the American promise

of equal opportunity for all. Obama’s proposals last night — reforming our education system, increasing the minimum wage and investing in infrastructure and manufacturing — would be a great start. While the goal of universal pre-K likely is impossible in today’s political climate, the concept should be promoted, and support will continue to build. In many European countries, it’s standard for young children to be guaranteed a preschool education of some kind. Many studies show that early learning increases economic mobility. It’s a huge investment, but it’s worthwhile. Obama’s other request, to “give America a raise,” makes sense. Already, the majority of Americans support increasing the national minimum wage — an ABC News/Washington Post poll in December found 66 percent in favor. Minimum wage, $7.25, hasn’t changed since 2009, and workers, including many college students, earning that wage remain below the poverty line. This isn’t fair. The president’s executive order to increase the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 is a great start. Finally, investing in infrastructure and manufacturing is crucial to job creation. “Stimulus” has become a dirty word, but economists agree that spending money on these projects leads to economic growth and increased opportunities. After all, as Obama said: “Opportunity is who we are. And the defining project of our generation is to restore that promise.” As the economy continues to recover, let’s hope our government follows through, making sure that the quality of life improves for all Americans, not just a wealthy few.

EDITORIAL CARTOON

Time to update the American dream ERIK SHELL

and opting for something different. “But what about my property?” ask the critics. “If you have no land, then you have nothing!” For whatever reason, the West still holds to this notion of land ownership as supreme, as if this were ancient Greece, or even early America, and possession of property were required to vote and generally qualify as a citizen. Those days are gone at last, but there is still an unjustified desire to rip away a small piece of earth, plant your flag and call it yours. Similarly outdated are the picturesque suburbs safely tucked away between the farmers and those liberal city-folk. These places see just enough politics to make their residents feel involved, yet not enough that the issues of others intrude on their lives. It is political pseudo-apathy, and the generation of WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency and Internet restriction laws has shown again and again that complacency is the enemy and is therefore not in our playbook. The list can go on for days. Despite its failures, the Occupy Wall Street movement showcased an unhappy generation. We are watching a massive number of baby boomers retire, leaving behind a country continually more restrictive and financially difficult to manage. And yet the American dream would expect those of our generation to buy a car every few years, keep a riding lawn mower cleaned up and sit in shoebox homes until our own retirement (should we be blessed with such an improbability). I do not think this generation is going to accept that. It will not get quieter; it will not forget the war and poor economy, and despite the massive debt, it is educating itself on a vast scale. This generation demands a new dream, and it is not going to wait for it to be handed out to us.

In a world full of gadgets, devices and computers that become out of date before we leave the Apple Store, it’s hard to believe we need any more updates in our lives. Even turning on the computer provides daily reminders of all the Adobe and Spotify software updates we need. But there is one national concept that is long overdue for an update: the American dream. For me, a mention of the “American dream” conjures up images of 1950s pastel houses, all in a row looking exactly the same, with their well-trimmed lawns and Ford cars in the driveways. Inside each home is some version of gender structures at work, dinner on the table and Leave It to Beaver-style music playing in the background (for examples, see either Edward Scissorhands or Big Fish). This is what the American dream has been for a long time. You get married, move to the suburbs, lock down a mortgage and generally keep up with your neighbors until retirement at a comfortable 65 years old. But our generation has seen the results of this supposed dream. For those born in the early ’90s, the majority of our lives have taken place in a state of war. Likewise, our high school years, when we started paying attention to the wider world, were marked by the housing bubble and subsequent financial collapse. Then, after all that, we began to rack up massive amounts of student debt in a job market that remains difficult at its best and impenetrable at its worst. So where do our mortgages come in? Where are our white picket fences? Given the fiscal trauma and instability we’ve witnessed, and often felt the weight of, throughout Erik Shell is a junior classical languages our lives, we’d be better off bypass- and literatures and history major. He can ing this whole “dream” altogether be reached at eshelldbk@gmail.com.

Dining Services’ scam CHARLIE BULMAN

ANNA DOTTLE/the diamondback

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GUEST COLUMN

What’s behind the STEM gender divide

n the United States, many feminists seem to think that because there are more men than women in science, technology, engineering and math, it must mean the patriarchy and social barriers are keeping women from these fields. However, when looking at STEM fields and focusing solely on the number of women participating compared to men, one can miss the other possible explanations of the gender ratios. There could be alternative reasons men are joining STEM fields at a higher rate than women — reasons having nothing to do with patriarchy or social barriers. Developmental psychologists at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Michigan wondered if patterns of math and verbal abilities for each sex, based on SAT scores, could explain why there are fewer women in STEM fields. Results from the study showed students possessing good math skills and only moderate verbal skills were more likely to pursue a career in STEM than students who were good at math and also had high verbal skills because

of the first group’s narrower range of available job choices. Of the high school seniors surveyed who had high math and moderate verbal skills, 70 percent were male and 30 percent were female. When an individual has only moderate verbal abilities but is better at math, it should come as no surprise that the individual is more likely to pick a math-related degree. Therefore, within this category, more men than women are going to choose STEM degrees. Of the high school seniors surveyed with high math and high verbal skills, 37 percent were male and 63 percent were female. When an individual is good at math and also has high verbal abilities, he or she is open to a much broader range of degrees and career possibilities. As a result, a much larger portion of women can pursue a wider range of non-STEM degrees. Researchers surveyed these same high school students several years later about their career choices. They discovered that the participants who

possessed jobs in STEM fields were, again, much more likely to have moderate rather than high verbal abilities. Because of the greater number of men who excel at math but only have moderate verbal skills as compared to women in the same category, there are many more men in the STEM fields. None of this should come as a surprise — it has been known for a while now that men tend to score lower than women on tests of reading, writing and verbal abilities. I’m not saying there’s no such thing as social barriers women face in STEM fields; I just don’t think these barriers are responsible for the large gender gap in STEM that exists today. The research shows that the gap is largely because of the number of men who are good at math but have not-sogreat verbal abilities, while women’s stronger verbal skills allow them to access a wider range of career options. Pascal Bloch is a senior computer science major. He can be reached at pbloch@terpmail.umd.edu.

Consider the absurdity of a real-world equivalent: You and your friend head to Chipotle, and you want to use your gift card (which expires in a few hours) to pay for both meals. But the Chipotle manager says you can’t do that because that would make them work harder. Chipotle would cash in twice: once from pocketing the money you can’t spend when the card expires and again when your friend has to reach into his or her own wallet to pay for her meal. And that’s how Dining Services swindles students at the end of each semester. Hipple presents the cap as an improvement over the old system, in which Dining Services shaved off students’ points if they had more than a certain number at different intervals throughout the semester. But it’s a false dichotomy. Whether Dining Services fleeces us at the end of the semester or throughout, we’re still losing money. This isn’t to say Dining Services employees don’t work hard enough or that they should be working harder. Management, however, has a responsibility to staff the dining halls adequately to make good on its obligations. If officials truly were concerned with last-minute splurges, there’s a simple solution: allow students to roll over points from previous semesters. With one stroke, Dining Services could eliminate the incentive for students to binge. But that would mean ceding the profits from points purchased that go unused, something they’re unlikely to do. Students have options to counter Dining Services’ duplicity. They could select plans with fewer points to avoid losing money at the end of the semester or turn away from dining plans entirely. A reduction in more expensive plans could cut into the profits garnered from leftover points, forcing Dining Services to re-examine its policies. It’s not an unreasonable expectation that students should get what they pay for.

When winter break comes around, it’s easy to discard the memories of long finals, marathon study sessions and general caffeine-infused delirium. This finals amnesia, however, plays right into the hands of Dining Services, whose cynical 40-point daily cap tends to go unnoticed when students return after break. Essentially, our swipes function as gift cards. Students buy a dining plan corresponding to a certain number of points, and those points can be used to make purchases within a specified period. Companies (and presumably Dining Services) love these schemes because they make a given amount of money regardless of whether the card is used. Yet unlike most gift cards, with value that expires after years, the time students can use their points primarily is limited to the length of the semester. Considering the short window for making purchases, the 40-point limit on dining expenditures is especially cheap. Those with leftover points on their cards aren’t the only victims of the policy — the cap also prevents students from feeding friends who have run out of points already. Quoted in a December Diamondback article, Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple rationalized the cap as a protection against students overspending their excess points. Leaving aside some glaring omissions, Hipple doesn’t account for students departing early after finishing exams or turning to other vendors after running out of points — his main excuse is just that: an excuse. If Dining Services is willing to take our money at the beginning of the semester, it needs to be committed to organizing the food and Charlie Bulman is a sophomore resources to let us use the points we government and politics major. He can paid for. be reached at cbulmandbk@gmail.com.